The 12 Days of X-Mas

At four am on the fourteenth of December, a Teusday if his groggy mind recalled correctly, Severus maneuvered himself out of bed and into the shower without incident. Once the daily ritual of cleanliness had been preformed he sat at his desk for breakfast and the morning edition of the Prophet at precisely four thirty. He was accustomed to his morning pattern and would spend it marking various papers that he had been unable to finish the night before. Today, though, his grading was interrupted by a summons from Albus.

Grumbling the entire way, Severus snarled the password at the gargoyle and only just restrained from stomping up the spiral stairs as though a little child. Albus offered him tea. He firmly declined. Albus offered him biscuits. He declined with a sneer. Albus was going to offer him a lemondrop but the vicious glare Severus called upon caused the older wizard to reconsider.

“Very well then, sit down. I won’t have you looking down at me if I can help it.”

The potions professor briefly toyed with the idea of remaining standing but if placating the old man would get him out of here faster than he was all for it. Severus sat. And was promptly offered a lemondrop. He sighed and accepted the candy, drumming his fingers on the hard wood of the chair he sat in, waiting for Albus to get on with it already.

“I had the pear tree removed from your classroom. The partridge as well.”

Severus grunted. Was that all? Could he leave now?

“I was intrigued by the show Christmas spirit, Severus. I’m very happy to see you celebrating the season.”

“I assure you, Albus, I had nothing to do with that… distraction.”

“Yes, yes. Of course not.” There was a long pause where Albus quite pointedly looked at his watch for a generous amount of time. At length he turned back to the irate professor with a smile and a twinkle. “I have taken enough of your time, I am sure. Have a good day, Severus.”

Snape took the opportunity to rise and make his first attempt at leaving. He could never get away on the first try, though, and today was no exception. “Oh, and Severus?” Snape waited. Dumbledore waited as well.

The professor finally ground out; “Yes, Albus?”

Dumbledore smiled again, “Don’t be too hard on the children, Severus. It is Christmas.”

Snape grunted again and was able to escape on his second attempt.

--//--

Severus. Was. Peeved.

He had headed directly from his meeting with Albus down to his office and classroom, intending to start the day with a modicum of normalcy. It was not to be, though, and Severus had the troubling feeling that his morning meeting had been an intentional distraction to give whatever wizard had been doing these things the time they needed to conjure and animate the two doves that now perched on his shoulders. Upon entering his classroom, Severus had instantly become the newest and best thing to stand on. He had managed a few hexes at the birds before they had reached him and they were currently a glittering red and gold.

He was not going to be trapeasing around in Gryffindor colors. That was final. He pointed his wand at one of the offending doves and it had the gall to move onto the proffered piece of wood and coo at him. He snarled and shook it off, hexing it before it could perch again on his shoulder. Both birds now sported peach and neon green stripes.

Severus muttered something dark under his breath and stalked toward his chambers. As he crossed the threshold out of his classroom, the birds took wing and found new spots within the chamber. The potions professor grumbled but was inwardly thankful that there was a limit to the spell. He turned back, not quite entering his classroom, but not outside of it either. The birds circled the room in anticipation. Snape sent various hexes at the flying rats with the same effects as before. He paused when he stumbled over a color combination he could tolerate; black and charcoal gray.

If he couldn’t get rid of them, they might as well match.

--//--

Honestly! It was as though the little brats had never seen a dove before the way they were staring at him through his lectures! He snapped at his fifth year ravenclaw/hugglepuff class again but his threats seemed to be having less and less of an effect on the students. He, in a final act of desperation, stalked to the back of the classroom to stand at the door, behind even the last row of students. A few turned to look at him curiously and he roared at them, “Eyes front!”

They quickly went back to their potions, for the most part. Severus narrowed his eyes, daring any of them to look again. One did and his sneer morphed into a truly terrifying smile. The boy quickly turned back to his work but the damage had already been done. His cauldron’s contents vanished. The vials he was using cleaned themselves. The ingredients disappeared and his knives put themselves away. His cauldron flew across the room to hang on one of the many pegs and his magical fire was extinguished, all with a single wave of Snape’s wand. The boy’s book snapped shut with a loud snap.

No other students looked back at him for the remainder of the class.

--//--

If one could ignore the constant cooing and the more than slightly occasional need to duck, than there was a very slim possibility that in the most remote areas of one’s deranged mind, one could enjoy the new roost that no less than a thousand colorful doves had made of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Severus, however, did not fall under that category.

He had started with snarling and hexing anything that came his way. When that didn’t seem to deter the beasts he cast a bubble around his person that repelled and redirected anything that came within a two feet of him. It took him a moment to figure out how to stop walking two feet in the air but with that issue avoided he found the sea of students parting before him in a manor most pleasant. The bubble didn’t seem to work on the doves in his classroom and he did have to cancel the spell in order to pick anything up, but the minor effort was worth the trouble if it meant he didn’t have to be a walking target for seemingly blind fowl… and their strangely accurate aerial presents.

He had managed to hand out a surplus of detentions whom he directed to Filch, (Severus had little doubt that the buggers would be scrubbing the hallways for the next month if this kept up) which cheered him greatly and managed to get him through the remainder of the day without hexing anything (or anyone) of too great an importance. He quietly prayed that Albus would come up with something a bit more unique for the remainder of the week…

--//--

With a mental sigh of long suffering, Severus entered his chambers and shrugged his outer robe off his shoulders. He draped it carelessly over the back of the chair before the fire. Undoing the first two buttons of his collared shirt he turned toward his desk he first noticed the new addition to his room. Suspended in the air, directly below a rather large branch of his shadow tree, in a simple curved iron cage were two birds, both of them predominantly black. This time Severus’s sigh was verbal as he approached the cage. He may have not liked many colors but that didn’t mean he wanted everything to be black…

He opened the cage and reached one long-fingered hand into it. One of the doves nipped a finger then perched. He drew it out and it flared its wings against the sudden movement. Severus saw a flash of emerald. Curious, he drew the wing out to look at it. There was a pattern, much like those of the gyrfalcon, on the bird’s wing in a brilliant green.

Severus took a seat at his desk, placing the dove on his shoulder in order to have both hands free for his grading. He absently wondered if he would have hens to take care of tomorrow.